President Barack Obama said today that the federal government is taking aggressive steps to deal with the Gulf oil disaster, noting that BP will ultimately have to pay for all containment and clean-up efforts.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama has declared a moratorium on new offshore oil drilling pending a full investigation of the Gulf oil disaster, shaping up as one of the worst environmental disasters in American history, and of present offshore drilling practices. … The oil company-led group seeking to repeal California’s landmark climate program announced that it will on Monday file enough signatures to qualify its initiative for the November ballot. .. In an amusing aside in that nasty California Republican gubernatorial primary, Steve Poizner’s campaign responded to the Meg Whitman threat to reveal “tape” of his moderate stance in 2004 (see item below) by releasing video footage of Whitman at a Democratic Leadership Council event with then President Bill Clinton and then Governor Gray Davis. At the site of their Sunday debate, the Tech Museum in Silicon Valley. The Poizner thesis is that she’s really a closet liberal. My thesis is she has no politics, other than what’s good for wealthy investors and corporations.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHITMAN DEMANDS RELEASE OF THE MURPHY, ER, POIZNER TAPES, AND THAT EXCITING RACE FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. With her big edge in the pulls shrinking and Steve Poizner hammering her with a tough new TV ad on her deep ties to Goldman Sachs (see the early morning item below on that), billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination issued a distinctly un-commanding frontrunner-like challenge late this morning: Release the hounds! Er, make that tapes.
The Whitman juggernaut, prepping for a Sunday debate with Poizner, is demanding that Poizner release “tapes” of his debates when he ran for a San Francisco Bay Area state Assembly seat in 2004. And if he doesn’t, they will. On this very web site, rollstevetape.com, which comes complete with a countdown to Monday. But no 24-like ticking clock sound effect.
What will these tapes reveal? Why, what I told readers months ago, that Poizner was a moderate Republican running in a Democratic district.
Which Whitman chief strategist Mike Murphy, the mastermind behind this latest attempt to blunt Whitman’s big Goldman Sachs problem, knows very well. Because Murphy, then chief political strategist for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was the mastermind in selecting Poizner as one of a dozen Republican Assembly candidates for the action superstar to back heavily in 2004, running in Democratic districts that Schwarzenegger nonetheless carried when he won his landslide election in the 2003 recall.
It was, as I said at the time, a bad idea. Schwarzenegger’s candidates predictably all went down to defeat. Why? Because Schwarzenegger wasn’t running. But it was a good way to get Schwarzenegger to raise and spend a ton of money in the process.
And what are these heinous Poizner positions that, mind you, Whitman’s chief strategist Murphy encouraged him to take? Why, being pro-choice on abortion. (Which Whitman says she is, too.) And supporting the environment (another supposed Whitman stance), stem cell research (a Silicon Valley staple), open primaries (he’s against them now, as is Whitman), and redistricting reform. (Does Whitman want the Legislature to go back to drawing the districts? Really?)
Clearly that makes him a dangerous Democrat. Seriously, folks, we’ve been through this. Poizner was a moderate Republican who moved further to the right as he began to run for governor. Whitman was, well, you don’t really know, because she didn’t really participate until she decided — at Mitt Romney’s behest — that it would be just swell to be the governor. So she’s a cipher. But she did support Senator Barbara Boxer, she did give money to environmental groups, and she did attend a big event for Al Gore. Even if she didn’t, you know, vote, or bother to do so much as write an op-ed piece about the many woes of California which she now says she wants so very much to correct.
Meanwhile, in another fun frolic of politics, the race for lieutenant governor is well underway. To the extent that it gets underway during the primaries.
New Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, Schwarzenegger’s handpicked and hard fought-for appointee, was in New York City yesterday to appear on Comedy Central with Stephen Colbert for The Colbert Report. There the ebullient pol pushed his open primary initiative on the June California ballot. Winning in the process the endorsement of the usually rather astringent Colbert, once he was satisfied that it would not cut into advertising for his show, that is.
Maldonado has to get past right-wing state Senator Sam Aanestad in the Republican primary. But assuming he does, he will be a very strong candidate in the general election.
Where he will face … Oh, I’m just guessing here … one Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco. Newsom has to fight off a spirited challenge by LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn. But Newsom won the endorsement this week of Hahn’s small hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times. And Hahn has enough money, as the saying goes, to pay her high-priced consultants.
This new national poll shows 51% in favor, with 39% opposed.
Illegal immigration is a very tricky issue, despite what many in the mainstream and on the left prefer to think. The fact is that there will never be a national consensus in favor of an open border. Too many people want to come here. Less so when times are tough, but when times are tough, many folks who are here worry even more about those here illegally, who may be taking jobs and costing money in the form of taxpayer services.
This is why I always believed that illegal immigration would be a strong issue for Steve Poizner in his uphill race against billionaire Meg Whitman in the Republican primary for governor of California. She was trying to have it both ways, attempting to appeal to Latinos — despite not hiring Latino executives at eBay — with her support for comprehensive immigration reform, aka the old McCain/Kennedy bill. But also attempting to speak in code to base Republican voters with her anti-welfare radio ad last December. What she neglected to mention was the fact that the welfare caseload has a great many illegal immigrant children, So if she was at all serious about cutting welfare spending, she had to be for a crackdown on illegal immigration. Hence the contradiction which Poizner has been exploiting in his campaign, which has also had the effect of driving her to the right on the issue and blocking her breakthrough with Latino voters, should she make it to the general election against Jerry Brown.
Yet I digress.
Here’s what we learn from the new Gallup Poll.
More than three-quarters of Americans have heard about the state of Arizona’s new immigration law, and of these, 51% say they favor it and 39% oppose it. …
These results are based on a new Gallup poll conducted April 27-28, in the days after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s signing the bill into law. The law makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in the country, and allows Arizona law enforcement officials to detain those suspected of being in the country illegally unless they can prove otherwise. The law has sparked protests in Arizona and other parts of the U.S., and calls for economic boycotts of the state.
Nationally, 62% of Republicans support the law (including 75% of Republicans who have heard about it). Democrats are more likely to oppose (45%) than favor (27%) the law, and a majority of Democrats familiar with the law (56%) oppose it. Independents are somewhat more likely to favor (37%) than oppose (29%) the law, with half of those who have heard about it in favor.
Regardless of their level of self-reported familiarity with the Arizona law, Americans are generally more supportive of than opposed to it. Note that the poll did not attempt to measure actual knowledge about the law or describe the various provisions of the law to respondents. …
Most Americans have heard about Arizona’s tough new immigration law, and they generally support it. The law was passed partly in response to a lack of federal action on the issue. Since the Arizona bill became law, congressional Democrats have considered taking up the issue in the coming weeks, though this initial read on public opinion toward the Arizona law suggests Americans may not necessarily back an attempt to supersede or otherwise undermine it.
This web video attacking billionaire Meg Whitman, current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for governor of California, for her longstanding role with Goldman Sachs is merely the appetizer for a new 30-second TV attack ad broadcast around the state.
** BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN’S GOLDMAN SACHS PROBLEM HAMMERED HOME IN NEW TV AD. NWN has learned that super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is today launching a new TV attack ad against his still frontrunning rival for the California Republican gubernatorial nomination, Meg Whitman, which hammers her for her deep longstanding and still existing ties to the controversial Goldman Sachs investment banking firm. Whitman was a member of the board of Goldman Sachs, but left suddenly under harsh criticism from federal regulators over her role there, including her very lucrative inside stock trades.
Poizner, as reported here first two weeks ago, has closed the gap substantially against Whitman, though he still trails by double digits.
This new TV ad will run in rotation statewide with a TV ad launched only a few days ago featuring the California conservative icon, Congressman Tom McClintock, in which the face of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger morphs into that of Meg Whitman. McClintock validates Poizner as the conservative standardbearer in the gubernatorial primary and rips Whitman for backing Wall Street bailouts and “environmental extremism.”
In the Goldman Sachs ad, male and female announcers say that while most Californians suffered during the financial crisis (with a Grapes of Wrath-like foreclosed homeowner onscreen), it was “easy money” for Whitman (shown in the famous Fortune magazine cover shot in riding togs with rented horse). The ad charges that Whitman invested in “vulture funds” profiting from California foreclosures.
Citing news reports, the ad declares that Whitman’s entire fortune is today intertwined with Goldman Sachs and that she helped manage the bank, receiving stock deals “so unethical they were outlawed.”
Whitman, the ad notes, “campaigned for the Goldman bailout” as Whitman is shown onscreen declaring it “the right thing to do.” Which was “no surprise” as the bank’s executives contributed heavily to Whitman.
The hard-hitting 30-second spot closes with this tag: “Meg Whitman. Bad judgment. Wrong values.”
I got word of the ad late Wednesday and then watched it via a private media service independent of any gubernatorial campaign.
As I’ve said before, the Goldman Sachs issue is never going away for Whitman, try though her handlers might to say that she “missed the signposts” or equate her involvement with the far more tangential links to Poizner and Jerry Brown.
An oil slick that threatens to become America’s worst environmental disaster in decades has started to wash up along the Gulf Coast.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Maryland today.
Obama received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 7:35 AM Pacific, Obama makes a statement on the first quarter 2010 Gross Domestic Product numbers.
The GDP grew by 3.2%, indicating a steady if relatively modest economic recovery is underway.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route to Beltsville, Maryland.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Beltsville, Maryland and visits the James J. Rowley Training Center for the U.S. Secret Service.
At 12:45 PM Pacific, Obama departs Beltsville, Maryland on Marine One.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
In other action, Vice President Joe Biden is in Colorado today.
He delivers remarks on the Recovery Act at UQM Technologies, a green tech company.
Biden then headlines a fundraiser for Congresswoman Betsy Markey in Denver.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
A new Pentagon report on the situation in Afghanistan says that few strategically significant Afghan districts support the government of President Hamid Karzai. It also casts serious doubt on the administration’s will to fight the nation’s rampant corruption. The government is seen as still unable to provide basic services to the people.
In Iraq, where the withdrawal of American combat troops is only a few months away, the government following national elections over seven weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
Yesterday a recount was ordered in Baghdad province. This will take at least another two to three weeks. The move appears designed as yet another attempt to knock out the narrow lead won by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular Sunni party in the national vote, which under Iraq’s constitution entitles it to take the lead role in forming a government.
Meanwhile, the elections in Britain, America’s biggest ally, head into the stretch run for the May 6th contest.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s chances may have gone down the tubes after he was recorded Wednesday making a disparaging remark about a voter he’d just spoken with doing his “man of the people” bit, which he actually loathes.
Brown’s Labour Party had been in a tight race with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
Last night the leaders of the three parties held their third and final debate on the BBC. And according to snap polls, Gordon Brown finished third best, behind Conservative David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg.
His best hope now appears to be for a hung parliament and a coalition government with Clegg.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on The Tonight Show last night.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
At 10 AM, Schwarzenegger Joins Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to announce that a global renewable energy product company is establishing its North American Headquarters there.
The announcement will take place outside Los Angeles City Hall.
Schwarzenegger appeared on The Tonight Show, the venue on which he declared his “surprise” 2003 gubernatorial candidacy, last night. He decried the new law in Arizona targeting anyone to be forced to prove their citizenship at any time, said that of course he would like to run for president were it allowed under the Constitution, and criticized federal inaction on immigration law and the status of illegal immigrants working in this country. He thinks Mitt Romney will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** IS OBAMA FINALLY PIVOTING TO THE ECONOMY? I started hearing it last December. President Barack Obama was at last about to pivot to a principal focus on the issue that people care about the most, the economy. It would be right after the holidays.
But after Christmas morning dawned, it was anything but that.
There was the barely thwarted Christmas Day airline bomber. Terrorism was suddenly back in the forefront of public concern. Just as that settled down, Scott Brown won the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, throwing the national health care bill into total disarray. Which lasted for some time, before it became the total focus again, in part at the insistence of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who got the Senate’s version through the House. When that finally passed, the pivot to the economy was to take place once again, but it never quite happened.
In fact, it’s just one thing after another, with geopolitics playing a big part, as it should. Yet Obama is dealing with a media culture geared to simplistic takes on simple issues, and a public that is understandably most concerned about the ever so slowly recovering economy.
Now Obama has spent most of the week focusing on economic recovery and Wall Street reform, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid breaking the Republican filibuster against the latter and with Obama spending two days appearing in key heartland swing states. But Obama may be distracted again, this time by the massive offshore oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which comes only weeks after he reversed his campaign position and championed more offshore drilling. … From my April 29th column.
** PUNDITS, BLOGGERS, ACTIVIST LEADERS THINKING OF RUNNING FOR HIGH OFFICE? THINK AGAIN.I was in a rush on a very busy Saturday morning. I knew there had to be a press room at the LA Convention Center for the California Democratic convention. There had to be. I just hadn’t bothered to find out where it was. Fortunately, I saw a very familiar face.
“Hey, Mickey,” I said. “Where’s the press room?” It was Mickey Kaus, the very prominent Slate blogger and former New Republic columnist. Then I noticed that he was holding not a notebook but a stack of flyers, which he was trying to hand out to mostly uninterested people as they entered the convention.
That’s right, I remembered. Mickey is running for the U.S. Senate. …
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with his usual unsmiling flair, played the eco-warrior in the Arctic on Thursday, tagging an endangered polar bear. Under Putin’s leadership, Russia has been very aggressive in pursuing its claims in the Arctic, a region which climate change is likely to unveil as a major storehouse of fossil fuel energy.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $51 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
A massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has become far worse than initially though crept toward the coast as government officials offered help from the military to prevent a disaster that could destroy fragile marshlands along the shore. BP finally acknowledged that its estimates of the crisis were very understated.
** QUICK HITS.Dramatically highlighting the rightward move of the national Republican Party, Florida Governor Charlie Crist – who helped provide John McCain’s knockout punch of Mitt Romney in the 2008 Florida primary — became an independent today. Trailing Tea Party fave Marco Rubio in the Republican Senate primary, Crist now becomes something of a frontrunner in the race. The move was long expected. … The Securities and Exchange Commission, which this week sued Goldman Sachs for fraud, today also turned over information to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. …Former Univision chairman Jerry Perenchio gave Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger $1 million today for California’s open primary initiative, which has a sizable lead in credible private polling. …
While Schwarzenegger has always had concerns about the state will pay for expansion of health care services — something he proposed in his own near universal health care bill which passed one house of the California Legislature in 2007 — he says he’s satisfied that there will be plenty of time to develop those mechanisms while federal funding covers things.
During the news conference, Schwarzenegger said reform measures would cost the state between $2 billion and $3 billion a year, but the full costs would not kick in for seven years, giving the state time to figure out how to pay for them. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said she welcomed Schwarzenegger’s support and his dedication to strengthening the health care system.
She said the Obama administration has made progress in protecting consumers and lowering costs since the president signed the bill.
“This is a very state-friendly law and our administration has worked closely with governors to both pass and begin implementation of it,” Sebelius said in a statement.
Schwarzenegger’s move could have broad consequences for the state and for the success of the national reform effort. The nation’s most populous state also has the highest number of uninsured residents in the country, roughly 8.2 million, a number that has swelled by 1.8 million during the past two years because so many Californians have lost employer-based health insurance during the recession.
Schwarzenegger said that reality is placing an enormous strain on uninsured families and on the state economy. Deep state budget cuts in recent years also have left tens of thousands of poor, vulnerable residents with severely reduced coverage. California will take several immediate steps to begin implementing the federal plan, including the formation of a health care reform task force, the governor said.
The steps also include contracting with the federal government to operate a new high-risk pool for people who have been refused coverage, and developing a purchasing pool so small businesses and individuals can shop for health insurance at competitive rates.
In addition, state agencies will begin enforcing some of the cornerstones of the federal law, such as removing lifetime dollar limits on health insurance payouts, allowing children to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26, preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to children and banning retroactive policy cancellations.
Schwarzenegger said the initial steps will be fully funded by the federal government. He intends to convene a special session of the Legislature if legislative action is necessary.
Both Republicans who seek to succeed Schwarzengger as governor, billionaire Meg Whitman and super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, opposed the new law and are trying to get Attorney General Jerry Brown to join several Republican state attorneys general in suing against it. Brown is of course the de factor Democratic nominee for governor.
Brown, naturally, will not join the lawsuit.
** IS OBAMA FINALLY PIVOTING TO THE ECONOMY? I started hearing it last December. President Barack Obama was at last about to pivot to a principal focus on the issue that people care about the most, the economy. It would be right after the holidays.
But after Christmas morning dawned, it was anything but that.
There was the barely thwarted Christmas Day airline bomber. Terrorism was suddenly back in the forefront of public concern. Just as that settled down, Scott Brown won the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, throwing the national health care bill into total disarray. Which lasted for some time, before it became the total focus again, in part at the insistence of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who got the Senate’s version through the House. When that finally passed, the pivot to the economy was to take place once again, but it never quite happened.
In fact, it’s just one thing after another, with geopolitics playing a big part, as it should. Yet Obama is dealing with a media culture geared to simplistic takes on simple issues, and a public that is understandably most concerned about the ever so slowly recovering economy.
Now Obama has spent most of the week focusing on economic recovery and Wall Street reform, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid breaking the Republican filibuster against the latter and with Obama spending two days appearing in key heartland swing states. But Obama may be distracted again, this time by the massive offshore oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which comes only weeks after he reversed his campaign position and championed more offshore drilling. …
The U.S. Coast Guard says that big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is five times bigger than BP estimated. The oil slick, now 2100 square miles in size, larger than the State of Delaware, is approaching the sensitive Gulf Coast. This is all the result of an explosion on an offshore oil rig on April 20th which destroyed the rig and killed 11 oil workers. The spill may have to be managed by burning the oil on the surface of the water.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today after two days on the road in key swing states promoting his programs for economic recovery and Wall Street reform.
Obama received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then joined First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and many others for the late civil rights leader Dorothy Height’s funeral at the National Cathedral.
Obama delivered the eulogy.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 10:40 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at an event honoring the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, and state teachers of the year from around the country, in the Rose Garden.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
At 4:35 PM Pacific, Obama attends a Democratic National Committee fundraising dinner at a private residence.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
A new Pentagon report on the situation in Afghanistan says that only 29 of 121 strategically significant Afghan districts support the government of President Hamid Karzai. It also casts serious doubt on the administration’s will to fight the nation’s rampant corruption. The government is seen as still unable to provide basic services to the people. That and the rampant governmental corruption are seen as helping drive the Taliban insurgency.
In Iraq, where the withdrawal of American combat troops is only a few months away, the government following national elections over seven weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
And today a recount was ordered in Baghdad province. This will take at least another two to three weeks. The move appears designed as yet another attempt to knock out the narrow lead won by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular Sunni party in the national vote, which under Iraq’s constitution entitles it to take the lead role in forming a government.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was overheard yesterday describing an exchange he had with a female voter as a “disaster”, calling her a “bigoted woman.” He was still wearing a wireless microphone provided by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News as he was driven off in his ministerial Jaguar.
Meanwhile, the elections in Britain, America’s biggest ally, are in turmoil after Prime Minister Gordon Brown was recorded yesterday making a disparaging remark about a voter he’d just spoken with doing his “man of the people” bit, which he actually loathes.
This voter, who says she is a lifelong Labour voter, evidently roused Brown’s displeasure by complaining about immigrants from Eastern Europe. The two looked strained but were pleasant enough as they parted, with the woman commenting about how good the education system is in Russia.
Once in the car, Brown called the exchange a “disaster” and called the woman “bigoted.” What he did not know as his car drove off is that he was still miked by Sky News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, who backs the Conservatives in this election.
Oops.
Sky was only too happy to reveal the prime minister’s private conversation, and Brown has been apologizing ever since. It comes at a particularly bad time, with the third and final debate tonight between Brown, Conservative Party leader David Cameron, and Liberal Democratic Party leader Nick Clegg, who by all accounts won the first debate.
Labour had been 10 points behind the Conservatives when Brown called the national election on April 6th — the Brits don’t have endless campaigns as we do in the U.S. — but quickly closed the gap to around three points. Meanwhile, Britain’s big third party, the Liberal Democrats, under the charismatic and articulate Clegg, surged, raising the distinct prospect of a hung parliament in which the Liberal Democrats would hold the balance of power. Which would likely lead to a coalition government with Labour.
But in the wake of yesterday’s incident, the situation is far more clouded.
As for what Gordon Brown said, let’s say that I’m quite sure he is in a multitude of company when it comes to making very candid and less than uplifting comments once inside the car. The difference for him is that he was wearing a live microphone owned by a media company whose owner opposes his prime ministership.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
At 11 AM, Schwarzenegger will deliver remarks at the California Mayors Graduation Summit: Ensuring All Students are Ready for College, Careers and Life, hosted by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
At 1 PM, Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference to discuss federal health care reform implementation at the UC Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento.
In late afternoon, Schwarzenegger will tape an appearance with his old friend Jay Leno for The Tonight Show in the place where it all began, NBC’s Burbank Studio. I still have the studio pass.
Schwarzenegger’s parting words to me the day before he made his announcement: “You should definitely come. It will be fun.”
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** PUNDITS, BLOGGERS, ACTIVIST LEADERS THINKING OF RUNNING FOR HIGH OFFICE? THINK AGAIN.I was in a rush on a very busy Saturday morning. I knew there had to be a press room at the LA Convention Center for the California Democratic convention. There had to be. I just hadn’t bothered to find out where it was. Fortunately, I saw a very familiar face.
“Hey, Mickey,” I said. “Where’s the press room?” It was Mickey Kaus, the very prominent Slate blogger and former New Republic columnist. Then I noticed that he was holding not a notebook but a stack of flyers, which he was trying to hand out to mostly uninterested people as they entered the convention.
That’s right, I remembered. Mickey is running for the U.S. Senate. …
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street. … From my April 21st essay.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $50 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Goldman Sachs got a surprise defender today: Former President Bill Clinton. He says that he thinks Goldman Sachs may not have violated the law, despite charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Clinton has a very complicated relationship with the Wall Street crisis. His treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, was once head of Goldman Sachs. And Clinton deregulated financial markets, creating the setting in which rocket science financial products emerged and nearly wrecked the global economy.
** QUICK HITS. The U.S. Senate has agreed to begin debate on the Wall Street reform bill. (See item below.) … Just a day after swearing in his handpicked lieutenant governor, Abel Maldonado, tensions appear to be growing between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders. What’s the hang-up? Schwarzenegger setting the special election for Maldonado’s state Senate seat away from the general election, complicating Democratic plans to pick up the seat and costing coastal counties money for another election. (Democratic delays earlier caused the special election not to be at the same time as the statewide primary.) And reports that Schwarzenegger is using a proposed legislative pay cut to exert pressure in the chronic state budget crisis. … In brighter news, Attorney General Jerry Brown and Schwarzenegger both announced that the state, through legal action, has recovered another $400 million in consumer overpayments during the electric power crisis. Through legal action, the state has now recovered some $3 billion, with much more in play, from power contracts entered into under duress in the early part of the past decade.
** SENATE REPUBLICANS FIGURE IT OUT AND CAVE ON THEIR FILIBUSTER OF THE WALL STREET REFORM BILL. Two days of Senate votes blocking debate on the Wall Street reform bill backed by President Barack Obama was well into a third when Senate Republicans finally figured out that they were playing into Obama and the Democrats’ messaging. With a public outcry about Wall Street misdeeds that nearly tanked the global economy in 2008 and 2009 growing.
It was Nevadan Reid’s idea to schedule multiple cloture votes in rapid succession this week in order to highlight Republican insistence on blocking movement on the issue.
Which means that the bill has passed its 60-vote supermajority threshold essentially by default, and that a Democratic victory on the bill is all but assured.
Now we’ll see how the negotiations go. Where they have to get, in addition to regulating and in some cases outlawing exotic financial maneuvers, is to make it much harder to do massive bank bailouts. At least with public money.
Then there is the question of the new consumer financial protection bureau, which many Senate Republicans oppose because it will be a strong new regulatory tool.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHITMAN SAYS SHE “MISSED THE SIGNPOSTS” ON HER INSIDE TRADING AS A GOLDMAN SACHS BOARD MEMBER. Billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign is furiously trying to spin away a controversy that could consume her massively funded candidacy. Namely, her controversial tenure as a member of the board of Goldman Sachs, which ended with the investment bank settling federal charges against it, and with her disgorging millions she garnered through her trading on inside information granted to her. That’s the so-called “spinning” of initial public offerings, in which she took stock granted to her in advance of it being publicly available, as an insider and board member, and sold it for huge profits a few days later when the shares hit the public markets.
So Whitman did an interview yesterday, in which she did not adequately push back against the controversy. Whitman said she’d left the Goldman Sachs board because she “wasn’t a good fit.” Which she evidently learned as federal regulators and eBay stockholders were closing in, and not a moment before.
However, she did not apologize for her actions, which are now banned.
Instead, Whitman said: “I missed the signposts here.”
What does that mean?
“The lesson learned about it is you have to be extra vigilant about seeing any actual or perceived conflict of interest.”
Translation: She thinks that she should have realized that her highly lucrative inside stock trades could be perceived as constituting a conflict of interest.
But she does not admit that she had a conflict of interest. Or that she did anything at all that was wrong, even though she suddenly left the board in the wake of the firestorm of controversy her actions helped engender.
Reality check: This issue is never going away for Whitman, especially with this sort of handling.
And all the spuriously spun-up attempts to equate Whitman with Jerry Brown — whose sister Kathleen works on the public finance side of Goldman Sachs, and is uninvolved with any controversial activity (and whose one-time city Oakland entered into a Goldman-sponsored financing mechanism initiated before he became mayor by the city manager that Brown fired) — will not work.
The same goes for the Whitman camp’s efforts to equate her Goldman Sachs activities with Steve Poizner, her closing Republican primary rival, having had some investments through Goldman Sachs.
President Barack Obama dropped in on Jerry’s Family Restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa yesterday where he met 107-year old Frances Asher. He is on a “White House to Main Street” tour through Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri.
** PUNDITS, BLOGGERS, ACTIVIST LEADERS THINKING OF RUNNING FOR HIGH OFFICE? THINK AGAIN.I was in a rush on a very busy Saturday morning. I knew there had to be a press room at the LA Convention Center for the California Democratic convention. There had to be. I just hadn’t bothered to find out where it was. Fortunately, I saw a very familiar face.
“Hey, Mickey,” I said. “Where’s the press room?” It was Mickey Kaus, the very prominent Slate blogger and former New Republic columnist. Then I noticed that he was holding not a notebook but a stack of flyers, which he was trying to hand out to mostly uninterested people as they entered the convention.
That’s right, I remembered. Mickey is running for the U.S. Senate. …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. today.
Obama had his daily intelligence and economic briefings, then departed Des Moines, Iowa en route to Quincy, Illinois.
At 10:20 AM Pacific, Obama tours POET Biorefining in Macon, Missouri.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on the economy in Macon, Missouri.
At 12:20 PM Pacific, Obama tours a farm in Palmyra, Missouri.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on financial reform at Oakley Lindsay Civic Center in Quincy, Illinois.
At 3:15 PM Pacific, Obama departs Quincy, Illinois on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 5:05 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 5:20 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Back in Washington, Vice President Biden delivers remarks at the Wounded Warrior Soldier Ride on the South Lawn, meets with the U.N. Special Representative for Iraq Ad Melkert in the Roosevelt Room, meets with the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek in the Roosevelt Room, and attends a DNC event at the Washington Hilton.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
In Iraq, where the withdrawal of American combat troops is only a few months away, the government following national elections over seven weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
Offshore oil drilling? Not so fast. Hotel owners, tour operators and fishermen are all watching anxiously as oil from the wrecked rig Deepwater Horizon creeps toward the Gulf Coast.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
At 10:30 AM at Kentwood Elementary School in Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger will join Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Chairman Jake Steinfeld to announce that more than a million California students have signed up to participate in the 2010 Governor’s Fitness Challenge. That consists of exercising at least 30 minutes every other day.
Coca-Cola will also announce that it will fund eight brand new “Live Positively” Fitness Centers, valued at more than $100,000 each, at eight California schools that live up to Fitness Challenge.
Erstwhile Schwarzenegger ally Steve Poizner, who has partially closed a big gap in his race for the GOP nod for governor of California (first revealed here on NWN) against billionaire Meg Whitman, has a new anti-Arnold ad. Yesterday was one for the radio. Today’s is a TV ad.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street. … From my April 21st essay.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $50 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Goldman Sachs execs ran into a wall of bipartisan wrath today before a Senate panel investigating their role in the financial crisis and the Securities and Exchange Commission fraud suit against it. Billionaire Meg Whitman, a very free-spending GOP candidate for governor of California who was forced to resign from the Goldman Sachs board after her inside trading surfaced, is desperately trying to spin her close affiliation.
** QUICK HITS.Democrats again fell a few votes short of cutting off a Republican filibuster against the Senate bill to regulate Wall Street. Which plays into Democratic hands. The GOP will have to accede in the end. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swore in his appointee as California’s lieutenant governor, now ex-state Senator Abel Maldonado, in a warm, family–filled noontime event today. Schwarzenegger vexed Democrats by refusing to schedule the run-off replacement election with the general election, which will cost counties money and interfere with Democratic turn-out plans. Of course, earlier Democratic delays also cost money. Maldonado is the first Latino Republican to hold statewide office in California for over 130 years. … Schwarzenegger is also moving cautiously in response to state Senate President Darrell Steinberg’s call to sever relations with the State of Arizona in the wake of the state’s adoption of a draconian racial profiling law in response to illegal immigration.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHITMAN SAYS SHE’S “NOT A GOOD NEGOTIATOR.” The one thing we know that the next governor of California is going to have to be is a good negotiator. He or she will have to deal with the generally intractable reality of the state Capitol’s anti-government and ultra-government factions, along with a great deal else.
Billionaire Meg Whitman says her corporate credentials are what make her the best bet. Considering the very big mistakes she made as a CEO, I’ve always had my doubt about that. Now Whitman herself offers disqualifying evidence.
Nick Velasquez at the Democratic Governors Association’s California Accountability Project found footage of Whitman speaking at the Stanford Business School in 2006. And there she said this: “So I will tell you, I don’t think I’m a very good negotiator. And so, I actually, for the first five or six years at eBay, I didn’t do it. You know, I would be in the background and sort of advice and counsel. But I had some excellent negotiators…”
When Whitman did get involved directly in the negotiating, as with Skype, China, and some other matters, things got screwed up.
Her pays and perks went up dramatically as things went downhill for eBay.
Whitman, incidentally, left the board of Goldman Sachs after being forced to disgorge millions she made from inside information.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: POIZNER’S NEW ANTI-ARNOLD AD. Erstwhile Schwarzenegger ally Steve Poizner, now closing a big gap in his race for the GOP nod for governor of California (first revealed here on NWN) against billionaire Meg Whitman, has a new anti-Arnold ad, this one for the radio.
Narrator: Congressman Tom McClintock warned us about Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was right. Now, he’s warning us again about Meg Whitman.
Rep. Tom McClintock: Hi, this is Tom McClintock. Meg Whitman is spending her eBay millions trying to buy the Republican nomination for governor by smearing Steve Poizner.
Well I’ve had enough. California can’t afford Arnold Schwarzenegger’s third term, and that’s all that Meg Whitman offers. More borrowing, more environmental extremism, and more spending at our expense.
When we conservatives were fighting Barbara Boxer, and Van Jones, and the bailout of Goldman Sachs, Meg Whitman was on the other side.
This isn’t a close call. There’s only one conservative in this race, it’s Steve Poizner.
I’ve watched Steve fight for our conservative principles of individual freedom and limited government, and I trust him.
Our party and its principles shouldn’t be sold off on eBay.
We don’t need to rebrand our principles, we need to return to them. We need Steve Poizner.
McClintock finished a distant third in the 2003 recall election in his race against Schwarzenegger.
** AVERAGE RETIREMENT AGE GOES UP.According to a new Gallup poll, the average age for planned retirees keeps increasing.
This is happening as very lucrative retirement packages for public employees, which some experts say are not well funded, are coming under increasingly sharp scrutiny.
There is a very real prospect of a tremendous resentment factor emerging.
Americans’ projected retirement age has gradually increased over the past 15 years, with more than a third of non-retirees today saying they will retire after age 65, compared with 12% in 1995. This marks the first time Gallup has recorded more nonretirees saying they will retire after age 65 than before that age.
Gallup first asked non-retired Americans “At what age do you expect to retire?” in 1995, and has asked the question every year since 2002.
There has been a clear shift in retirement intentions over this period. In two 1995 polls, non-retirees were more likely to say they would retire before age 65 rather than either at 65 or after that milestone. Only 12% to 15% said they would extend their work life beyond age 65.
Now, 15 years later, Americans’ retirement intentions are more dispersed. Thirty-four percent say they will retire after 65, while the percentage saying they will retire before that age has shrunk to 29%. Twenty-seven percent say they will retire at 65.
President Barack Obama is kicking off the work of the federal deficit commission, saying public officials must move urgently to attack high spending and avoid inflicting a ‘mountain of debt’ on the next generation.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Illinois, and Iowa today.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama then greeted members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform at the White House, and delivered remarks on recommendations to improve fiscal health. As it were.
Obama then departed Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Quincy, Illinois.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, after landing in Illinois and driving to the site, Obama tours the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant in Fort Madison, Iowa.
At 11:10 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on how to grow the economy and put Americans back to work
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama tours a local business in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.
At 2:35 PM Pacific, Obama holds a town hall meeting at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa.
Obama will spend the night in Des Moines, a city I know well.
Iowa, of course, is where the president made his national breakthrough in the first-in-the-nation contest of 2008. His ability to win in a nearly all-white state was key to his ultimate victory in the race for president.
Iowa remains a national bellwhether, as well as a critical touchstone for Obama.
Prospects are looking up for Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation following his address on Thursday at the Cooper Union in New York City. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled a procedural vote for late yesterday, which fell short on a 57 to 41 vote in favor.
That, however, is fine with the president, who is pleased to see the opposition on the wrong side of the bill. Which will change in the not distant future.
In other action …
Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner chair a Middle Class Task Force meeting on the economic recovery plan hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee’s Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business.
And in Iraq, where the withdrawal of American combat troops is only a few months away, the government following national elections seven weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a pact yesterday to save the Hollywood sign from urban sprawl.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
This is the 50th Anniversary of the Master Plan for Higher Education, created by the late Governor Pat Brown, who I knew rather well a bit later. At the age of, er, 2.
At 11 AM, Schwarzenegger will hold a meeting with higher education leaders to discuss the importance of investing in California’s students in the Governor’s Council Room in the Capitol.
At 12:30 PM, Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference to swear in his appointee, state Senator Abel Maldonado, as Lieutenant Governor of California.
That will also take place in the Governor’s Council Room in the Capitol.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street. … From my April 21st essay.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $50 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
President Barack Obama, an unabashed Chicago White Sox fan, welcomed the New York Yankees to the White House to celebrate their World Series title.
** QUICK HITS.The Chris Dodd-sponsored Wall Street regulation bill failed in its cloture vote on a 57-41 vote in favor late today. The bill needs 60 votes to block a Republican filibuster. Senator Harry Reid voted against it so he can bring it back when he pleases. Democrats are actually pleased to have Republicans lining up against this bill, as it serves their partisan needs very nicely. … An ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that the bill is backed heavily, 65% to 31%.Voters trust Obama over Republicans on this issue, 52% to 35%, with a big edge for the president with independent voters. … California labor today officially launched the anti-billionaire Meg Whitman campaign I wrote about last Wednesday in my Huffington Post piece, linked below.
** MALDONADO CONFIRMED AS CALIFORNIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. A big win for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon as his appointee, moderate GOP state Senator Abel Maldonado (first revealed as Schwarzenegger’s appointee on NWN), was confirmed at last. Following last week’s victory in the state Assembly, the vote came today in the friendlier confines of the state Senate.
The vote was 25 to 7.
Maldonado will replace Democrat John Garamendi, who was elected to Congress in November. He is also running in the GOP primary for a full term at the office.
Maldonado will be sworn in tomorrow by Schwarzenegger in the state Capitol.
The special election for his state Senate seat will likely take place in August, with the run-off at the same time as the general election.
** NEW POLL: YOUNGER VOTERS LESS ENTHUSIASTIC, MORE DEMOCRATIC. There is good news and bad news, for both parties, in a new Gallup Poll.
Younger voters remain less enthusiastic about voting in this year’s midterm elections than those who are older, underscoring the challenge facing the Democratic Party in its efforts to re-energize these voters, who helped President Obama win the presidency in 2008. …
The fact that voters under age 50 — and particularly those under 30 — are less enthusiastic about voting this year is not a new phenomenon; voter turnout typically skews older. The current data, based on Gallup Daily tracking conducted April 1-25, confirm that so far, 2010 provides no exception to this traditional pattern.
It thus is not surprising that President Obama and Democratic Party leaders on Monday launched an effort to stoke enthusiasm among young people and other voting groups that helped support Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Obama issued a new online video that includes this exhortation to his supporters: “It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.”
Gallup Daily tracking data reinforce the value of younger voters for the Democrats, showing that 18- to 29-year-olds favor the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate in their local districts by a 12-point margin. In contrast, the Republican candidate is on top among all groups of voters aged 30 and older.
Younger voters have presented a good news-bad news scenario for Democratic candidates and campaign managers in recent elections. The good news is that younger voters disproportionately lean to Democratic candidates. The bad news is that younger voters have a historically bad track record in terms of turning out in big numbers on Election Day.
The current data confirm that at this juncture, both of these patterns continue to play out in this year’s midterm elections. Democratic leaders have apparently recognized these realities, and are attempting to re-create the enthusiasm for Democrats among younger voters that was apparent in 2008. Gallup’s continuous monitoring of voting enthusiasm across the age spectrum in the months ahead will help document whether these efforts are successful.
Note that these are national numbers. Democrats are stronger in California across the board. Nevertheless, the trend line is significant.
At a memorial service yesterday in Beckley, West Virginia, President Barack Obama offered words of praise and condolence for the 29 victims of the recent mine disaster. The April 5th explosion was the worst mining disaster in a generation.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A very big week in presidential politics gets off to a fast start today with President Barack Obama and his allies bringing up the Wall Street reform bill for a procedural vote in the Senate this afternoon. California politics will, as usual, be a bit slower, though super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is closing the gap in the GOP primary for governor, has a new ad in his TV rotation attacking billionaire Meg Whitman. And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to get his lieutenant governor, at last.
As fate would have it, Poizner’s attack ad on Whitman takes after his ex-ally, Schwarzenegger.
First to presidential politics.
In contrast to health care, which rolled out with the speed of dripping molasses, as is the legislative way, Wall Street reform is a fast break process.
In the Obama view, Republicans can embrace it, or reap the consequences. Indeed, in the past week we’ve seen a big change in the Republican stance, from opposing the Wall Street reform bill on the spurious basis that it is about bailing out big banks to getting into the weeds of the bill’s specifics.
While the president may at last be making his long promised pivot to the economy — something which should have occurred last year — he has other big things on his plate. And none is bigger than the governance of Iraq.
Seven weeks after the national elections in Iraq, its new government remains distinctly unsettled, the result of endless wrangling between Sunni and Shiite factions. This is on the verge of interfering with the American timeline for withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq.
In California politics, Schwarzenegger is on the verge of getting his pick for lieutenant governor, moderate GOP state Senator Abel Maldonado (first revealed on NWN), confirmed at last. Following last week’s victory in the state Assembly, the vote could come today in the friendlier confines of the state Senate.
In the race to succeed Schwarzenegger, Democrat Jerry Brown had an excellent week without spending a dime, scoring big on a challenge to both Republicans for pre-primary debates, as well as action against a Wall Street rating service which certified toxic assets and a big round-up of gang leaders in the Salinas Valley. The latter event drew Schwarzenegger to applaud the actions of Brown’s strike force.
As all this took place, the GOP frontrunner, Meg Whitman, trying to hold on to her lead against a closing Steve Poizner, had events around the state featuring conservative luminaries such as Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, her business entor, 2008 Repblican presidential nominee John McCain, and ex-Secretary of State George Shultz (who swiftly became ex-Congressman Tom Campbell’s campaign chairman when Campbell acceded to Whitman’s urging to leave the governor’s race in favor of a third try for the Senate).
In the process, the billionaire acquired what fatally dogged Schwarzenegger in his disastrous 2005 special election — horribly managed by Whitman chief strategist Mike Murphy — a mocking entourage from labor, notably the California Nurses Association.
As I revealed in my Huffington Post piece last Wednesday, labor decided to go after Whitman’s events. What I did not mention was that the leading edge wold be the nurses union staging protests against “Queen Meg,” replete with someone playing the billionaire, in costume, accompanied by “Lord Romney,” “Archbishop McCain,” and other ropey hangers-on in the Whitman court, all arriving in a Rolls Royce.
In case one wondered who still drives a Rolls.
Poizner, for his part, has a tough new ad linking the billionaire wannabee to Schwarzenegger, airing in rotation with his ongoing ad championing him as the across-the-board tax cutter in the race, as distinguished from Whitman’s plan for big tax cuts only for wealthy investors — her elimination of the capital gains tax would tear a massive hole in the state’s already reeling budget — and corporations.
This race, as I first revealed a week-and-a-half ago, is closing.
This week will likely also see big action in the California Senate race, where it is time for ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to start gunning down erstwhile GOP primary frontrunner Campbell with all the negative information she has on him.
We will also see what initiatives are qualifying for the November ballot. Will there be an anti-labor paycheck protection initiative? We already know the answer is no.
Will there be an initiative to repeal 2008′s redistricting reform initiative, which took redistricting away from the Legislature? Probably, but only as part of an effort to block a similar move on congressional redistricting. (Its prospects don’t look good.)
Will there be an oil industry-backed initiative to repeal the landmark AB 32 climate change program backed by Schwarzenegger and Brown? Probably. That move doesn’t poll well, and looks like a backfire for Whitman and Poizner, who both back repeal of the bill.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama then met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama welcomes World Series Champion New York Yankees to the White House.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
At 3 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building.
Prospects are looking up for Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation following his address on Thursday at the Cooper Union in New York City. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a procedural vote for late today.
In other action …
In Iraq, the government following national elections seven weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
In Iran, after a show of force the weekend before last, and after saying it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, Iran staged another show of force, this time in the the very strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply passes.
The exercise at the end of last week included simulated attacks on ships by underwater divers and small fast boats.
All this is designed to dissuade Western nations and Israel from strong sanctions or military action.
It’s also a reminder that at least a modicum of good will from Iran is necessary for the U.S. to stay on schedule in its withdrawal from Iraq, where Iran has had a great deal of influence following the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses the need for education reform in California.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
At 9 AM, Schwarzenegger will join The Trust For Public Land to make an announcement regarding the Cahuenga Peak campaign.
At 4 PM, Schwarzenegger will participate in the 2010 Milken Institute Global Conference Panel Discussion entitled State of the States: U.S. Governors on Navigating the New Budget Realities with Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle. The panel discussion will be moderated by Milken Institute Chair Michael Milken.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street. … From my April 21st essay.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $51 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
The South Korean Navy yesterday lifted the second half of a sunken warship from Pacific waters near the disputed sea border with North Korea, a month after a mysterious explosion split apart the ship and left 46 sailors dead or missing. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae Young said today that the most likely cause of the sinking was a torpedo exploding next to the ship.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Washington today.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings.
He will meet privately with legendary evangelist Billy Graham, who lives in a log cabin near Asheville.
At 10:50 AM Pacific, Obama departs Asheville, North Carolina on Air Force One en route to Beckley, West Virginia.
At 11:40 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Beckley, West Virginia
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama and Vice President Biden meet with family members of miners who lost their lives at Upper Big Branch mine.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers a eulogy at the memorial service for miners who lost their lives at Upper Big Branch mine.
At 2:20 PM Pacific, Obama departs Beckley, West Virginia on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 3:20 P Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards arine One.
At 3:35 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Prospects are looking up for Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation following his address on Thursday at the Cooper Union in New York City. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a procedural vote for late Monday.
GOP Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said today that he wants to reclaim five years of executive pay from bailed-out Wall Street banks.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama says that the auto industry and financial markets are beginning to stabilize and the government’s emergency interventions can now wind down. He says that real reform, particularly on Wall Street, must now begin.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Asheville, North Carolina today.
He has no planned public events.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings.
The Obamas are spending the weekend in North Carolina. The president got in a round of golf after arriving yesterday afternoon.
Prospects are looking up for Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation following his address on Thursday at the Cooper Union in New York City. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a procedural vote for late Monday.
In other action …
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finished talks in Estonia with top officials from NATO nations on the future of the alliance.
Clinton resisted calls by some for removal of the U.S. nuclear arsenal on European soil, reportedly some 200 weapons. She also looked to get more trainers from other NATO members for the Afghan Army and police forces.
She and the other NATO foreign ministers endorsed guidelines for passing control to the Afghans.
In Iraq, the government following national elections over six weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
In Iran, after a show of force last weekend, and after saying it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, Iran staged another show of force, this time in the the very strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply passes.
Yesterday’s exercise included simulated attacks on ships by underwater divers and small fast boats.
All this is designed to dissuade Western nations and Israel from strong sanctions or military action.
It’s also a reminder that at least a modicum of good will from Iran is necessary for the U.S. to stay on schedule in its withdrawal from Iraq, where Iran has had a great deal of influence following the removal of Saddam Hussein.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street.
Senator Barbara Boxer, whose situation is both more straightforward and more problematic than Brown’s, rallied the party at the LA Convention Center, then appeared with President Barack Obama on Monday night for three fundraisers. He’ll be back next month to help Boxer with fundraisers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Boxer and Brown are alike in that both are strong fighters who have won many statewide races. But they are not alike in other respects. …From my April 21st essay.
Eleven Somalis accused of attacking two U.S. Navy ships off the coast of Africa appeared yesterday in a federal court in Virginia on charges of piracy.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil closed on Friday at $85.12 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $51 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
President Barack Obama called the ethnically profiling Arizona immigration law “misguided” and said it may violate people’s civil rights. Senator John McCain, who once opposed laws like this, now favors it.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … PUNDITS, BLOGGERS, ACTIVIST LEADERS THINKING OF RUNNING FOR HIGH OFFICE? THINK AGAIN.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: GETTING IT WRONG ON BROWN, POIZNER’S NEW ANTI-ARNOLD AD, AND A BIGGER DEMOCRATIC AND INDEPENDENT EDGE IN REGISTRATION. Experience doesn’t always equal knowledge. That’s the takeaway from today’s brief daily effort by veteran Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.
Walters, a moderate conservative who had championed Pete Wilson’s governorship as the harbinger of a lasting Republican era in California and last week pooh-poohed that illegal, and highly inaccurate, TV ad by the California Chamber of Commerce, attacking Jerry Brown under the flimsiest of guises as an educational effort by the non-profit corporation — an ad which had to be disappeared, along with the web site established for the purpose — has covered Brown for nearly 40 years, generally negatively.
Today he had a short column in which he equated controversy about billionaire Meg Whitman’s finances with “questions” about Brown’s finances. In the course of it, in which he tried to liken Whitman’s offshore tax shelters and very controversial recent tenure on the board of Goldman Sachs to an oil importing business that Brown’s father, former Governor Pat Brown, established over 40 years ago, he wrote that Brown had “no visible means of support” after leaving the governorship.
As I reminded Walters this morning, the reality is very different. Brown, a Yale Law grad, worked for a big LA law firm.
Oops.
Brown, incidentally, is the only candidate to agree to the request of the Bay Area Newspaper Group (which includes the San Jose Mercury News) to release 10 years of tax returns.
Meanwhile, ex-Schwarzenegger ally Steve Poizner has a brand-new anti-Arnold TV ad to spur on his closing campaign against Whitman. Poizner had trailed by 50 points; now he’s within 20 points of the billionaire, who’s already shattered all California records for spending. (NWN was first to report a week ago that the race was closing.)
Here’s the text:
MALE NARRATOR: You like Arnold?
FEMALE NARRATOR: You’ll love Meg Whitman.
MALE NARRATOR: She supports taxpayer funding for abortion.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Do you?
MALE NARRATOR: Whitman campaigned and contributed to Barbara Boxer.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Did you?
MALE NARRATOR: Whitman campaigned for the disastrous bailout that saved Goldman Sachs.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Did you?
MALE NARRATOR: Whitman supports the Obama amnesty plan for illegal immigrants.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Do you? MEG WHITMAN: What I need to do is let Californians know what I stand for.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Oh, we know.
MALE NARRATOR: There’s a better choice, conservative businessman Steve Poizner. That’s real change.
The TV ad can be seen here. This is also the first TV ad that hits Whitman on Goldman Sachs. She had to leave the board after benefiting from inside information.
And the Secretary of State’s office today released the latest voter registration figures for California. Since the last race for governor in 2006, Democrats and independents have gained sharply, while Republicans have dropped.
In 2006, the state was 43% Democratic, 35% Republican, and 18% independent (decline to state). Today it’s 45% Democratic, 31% Republican, and 20% independent. Republicans are the only category, other than the Green Party, that has gone down in absolute numbers as the electorate as a whole grew.
Victory lies in winning the independents and turning out the base.
** PARTIES NEARLY EVEN IN NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION, AT LEAST AS OF A FEW WEEKS AGO, THANKS TO SLIDING INDEPENDENTS. While President Barack Obama has a 50% approval rating today, with 42% disapproving, his party fared less well during the first three months of the year.
A round-up of Gallup surveys during the first quarter of 2010 is sobering for Democrats, who can only hope their standing has gotten better over the last few weeks.
The advantage in public support the Democratic Party built up during the latter part of the Bush administration and the early part of the Obama administration has all but disappeared. During the first quarter of 2010, 46% of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 45% identified as or leaned Republican.
The latest results, based on aggregated data from Gallup polls conducted from January to March of this year, show the closest party division since the first quarter of 2005, when the parties were tied at 46%. Democrats enjoyed double-digit advantages in party support in 11 of 12 quarters from the second quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2009.
By the end of last year, the Democratic advantage had shrunk to five points (47% to 42%), and it narrowed further in the most recent quarter.
The six-point rise in Republican support since the first quarter of 2009 is due entirely to a growing proportion of independents who lean to the Republican Party, rather than an increase in the percentage of Americans who identify as Republicans outright. (Gallup measures party identification by first asking Americans whether they identify as Republicans, Democrats, or independents. Those who are independent or express no party preference are then asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or the Republican Party.)
In fact, the 28% of Americans who initially identify as Republicans today is identical to the figure Gallup measured in early 2009, when the Democrats still had a double-digit advantage in support. Since then, there has been a three-point reduction in the proportion of Democratic identifiers, and a three-point decline in the percentage of Democratic-leaning independents.
After his high-profile New York speech on Wall Street reform, President Barack Obama returned to the White House and late yesterday celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and North Carolina.
Obama received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then delivered remarks at a naturalization citizenship ceremony for members of the U.S. Armed Forces in the Rose Garden.
Obama spoke against an ethnic profiling law pending in Arizona and called for comprehensive immigration reform.
At 8:45 AM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama board Marine One and fly to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 9 AM Pacific, the Obamas depart Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Asheville, North Carolina.
At 10:20 AM Pacific, the Obamas arrive in Asheville, North Carolina.
They will spend the weekend in North Carolina.
Prospects are looking up for Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation following his address yesterday at the Cooper Union in New York City. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a procedural vote for late Monday.
In other action …
Vice President Joe Biden has traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This morning, Biden attends an event for Congressional candidate Mark Critz.
In the afternoon, Biden attends a rally for Senator Arlen Specter at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport. Specter, a Republican-turned-Democrat, is running in a primary against Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Finland for talks with top officials from NATO nations on the future of the alliance.
Clinton is resisting calls by some for removal of the U.S. nuclear arsenal on European soil, reportedly some 200 weapons. She is also looking to get more trainers from other NATO members for the Afghan Army and police forces.
In Iraq, the government following national elections over six weeks ago is still not settled. The secular Sunni party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi surprisingly finished first ahead of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Shiite-based party. But no one has been able to form a government and the shape of a national coalition government remains elusive.
56 people were killed in bombings today in Baghdad, apparently carried out by Sunnis fearful of their interests being shut out of the new government.
In Iran, after a show of force over the weekend, the Tehran regime again said it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, likely yet another bid to forestall new sanctions.
Yesterday Iran began another show of force, this time in the the very strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply passes.
Today’s exercise included simulated attacks on ships by underwater divers and small fast boats.
All this is designed to dissuade Western nations and Israel from strong sanctions or military action.
It’s also a reminder that at least a modicum of good will from Iran is necessary for the U.S. to stay on schedule in its withdrawal from Iraq, where Iran has had a great deal of influence following the removal of Saddam Hussein.
This Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral late yesterday on a mission shrouded in secrecy. The U.S. Air Force will say only that the unmanned rocket is carrying a test vehicle — the X-37B — that will conduct various experiments over the next several months.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger will hold private talks.
Schwarzenegger had a big day yesterday.
He celebrated Earth Day in the Bay Area city of Milpitas, where he announced a new solar manufacturing facility.
He then joined Attorney General Jerry Brown in Salinas, where Brown announced that, after an eight-month investigation, his Department of Justice strike force has arrested major gang leaders who have been preying upon residents of the Salinas Valley.
Schwarzengger also saw his appointee as lieutenant governor, moderate Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado, win easy confirmation by the state Assembly, which a few months ago declined to confirm him. The state Senate, which confirmed Maldonado, first revealed as Schwarzenegger’s appointee on NWN, the first time around on an overwhelming vote, will shortly follow suit.
Schwarzenegger also saw editorial approval for a new bill he is sponsoring with state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth to begin reining in public pension costs. This is a compromise from his position five years ago, in that it does not challenge existing pensions but moves toward a 401K system for new hires.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street.
Senator Barbara Boxer, whose situation is both more straightforward and more problematic than Brown’s, rallied the party at the LA Convention Center, then appeared with President Barack Obama on Monday night for three fundraisers. He’ll be back next month to help Boxer with fundraisers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Boxer and Brown are alike in that both are strong fighters who have won many statewide races. But they are not alike in other respects. …
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $49 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Speaking today in New York City as he called for Wall Street reform, President Barack Obama said the economy is recovering quickly but the progress needs to be felt more deeply and broadly around the country.
** QUICK HITS. I was on with tech support for 90 minutes this afternoon, which cut into output. … Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled the first procedural vote on the Wall Street reform bill for next Monday afternoon. More confirmation of the trend first reported here on NWN on Friday morning that billionaire Meg Whitman’s huge lead in the Republican primary is narrowing. A new Survey USA poll for California TV stations shows her lead suddenly down from 50 to 22 points. It’s Whitman 49%, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner 27%. … California conservative icon Congressman Tom McClintock ripped Whitman as a fake Republican this morning on a Poizner conference call and predicted a surging come-from-behind victory for the super-rich former Silicon Valley entrepreneur. … As expected, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pick for lieutenant governor, moderate Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado, was easily confirmed this morning by the state Assembly, which failed to do so earlier in the year. The vote was 54 to 20. The appointment now goes back to the state Senate, which approved Maldonado 26 to 7 the first time around. When Maldonado is finally confirmed, his seat will go up for special election, with the run-off to be coincident with the general election, giving Democrats a good chance to pick it up.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.Big developments in the past few days make it clear why California has the biggest races in the country this year, with President Barack Obama helping Barbara Boxer defend her Senate seat and Jerry Brown, trying for a record third term as governor, taking on the biggest spending statewide campaign in American history.
At its weekend convention in Los Angeles, the California Democratic Party endorsed Attorney General Jerry Brown as its candidate for an unprecedented third term as governor, in the process embracing him as the party’s “patriarch,” as one newspaper put it, albeit of the decidedly maverick variety. Brown, the two-time Democratic presidential runner-up who I shadowed on and off, reset the governor’s race against billionaire Meg Whitman or super-rich State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with a debate challenge and a focus on the excesses of Wall Street.
Senator Barbara Boxer, whose situation is both more straightforward and more problematic than Brown’s, rallied the party at the LA Convention Center, then appeared with President Barack Obama on Monday night for three fundraisers. He’ll be back next month to help Boxer with fundraisers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Boxer and Brown are alike in that both are strong fighters who have won many statewide races. But they are not alike in other respects. …
President Barack Obama takes on Wall Street’s business practices in a speech today in New York City.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and New York today.
Obama received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then flew from Washington to New York City on Air Force One.
At 8:55 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on Wall Street reform at the historic Cooper Union.
At 10:05 AM Pacific, Obama departs New York City on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at Earth Day reception in the Rose Garden.
Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
In other action … Vice President Biden appears on The View and meets with Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol to go over the Wall Street legislation.
Prospects now appear good.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to Finland, with the Icelandic volcanic ash beginning to settle, for talks with top officials from NATO nations on the future of the alliance.
In Iraq, the government following national elections six weeks ago is still not settled.
In Iran, after a show of force over the weekend, the Tehran regime again said it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, likely yet another bid to forestall new sanctions.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard today began large-scale war games in the Persian Gulf and the very strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply passes, state television reported.
Today Iran began another show of force, this time in the the very strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply passes.
All this is designed to dissuade Western nations and Israel from strong sanctions or military action.
ARNOLD UPDATE: At a news conference today at 1 PM in Salinas, Attorney General Jerry Brown and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will discuss “Operation Knockout,” in which agents from Brown’s Gang Suppression Enforcement Program (GSEP) of the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement arrested gang members after an eight-month investigation and sweep targeting the most powerful gang leaders in the Salinas area.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento today.
At 11:30 AM, Schwarzenegger will be in Milpitas, where he joins SunPower Chief Executive Officer Tom Werner to hold a press conference to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day and to announce that SunPower will locate its first U.S. solar manufacturing facility in California.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $49 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
President Barack Obama said today that he won’t insist that his Supreme Court nominee pass any “litmus tests” over supporting abortion rights, but made clear he’ll choose someone who will consider personal privacy and women’s rights when ruling on cases.
** QUICK HITS. It looks like there will be some Republican votes after all for President Barack Obama’s Wall Street reform legislation. … In the California governor’s race, Jerry Brown has regained the lead over billionaire Meg Whitman in the Republican-owned Rasmussen Poll. They had been tied, 40% to 40%. Now it’s Brown, 44-38. The poll also shows that California voters favor Brown’s proposal for a three-way debate between Jerry Brown and Republicans Whitman and Steve Poizner, 71% to 23%. A smart national TV show should extend the invitation to all three and see what Whitman, who said through a flack that she was interested before her high-priced advisors got to her, does then. I was the first to report five days ago that Whitman was starting to slide.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.
Billionaire Meg Whitman’s shop sent out a press release trying to put the best face on it this morning.
They claim that Whitman still leads Poizner, 55% to 24%, and say again that Poizner can’t win.
Of course, no one puts out a release like this unless there is a significant problem. And other polls have the race tighter than the Whitman crew says.
“It seems that the Republican primary voters already know that Steve Poizner can’t win,” says the Whitman missive.
“So with only weeks to go it seems very evident that Steve Poizner can neither stop Meg Whitman nor raise his own popularity to any level where he can make the case that he has any remote chance to win. As the primary date nears and early voting accelerates, the only real outcome is that Meg Whitman will win the Republican primary for Governor.”
Poizner has a different view.
As Jarrod Agen says: “Meg Whitman’s candidacy was always like one of those French soufflés one of her private chefs would cook up on her private jet — full of expensive air and destined to deflate. All of Meg’s Goldman Sachs riches can’t convince California Republicans that we need a Barbara Boxer supporter as our nominee. The numbers are moving as we expected, which means in this year’s general election Republicans will finally get a chance to vote for a Republican for Governor.”
** NEW POLL: FRESH SIGNS OF ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT. According to the new Gallup Poll, there are new signs of economic improvement.
Gallup estimates that more than 1.5 million Americans who were underemployed became employed to full capacity over the last month. Gallup’s 30-day average underemployment measure (not seasonally adjusted) declined to 19.2% on April 18 — a sharp improvement from the 20.2% reported on March 21 — and essentially matching its best level of the year.
Gallup classifies Americans as underemployed if they are unemployed or are working part time but wanting full-time work. The decline in underemployment to 19.2% reflects a decrease in both components, with unemployment at 9.9% and those working part time but wanting full-time work at 9.3%. The highs for these measures since Gallup began tracking in January are 11.3% and 10.0%, respectively. Still, despite signs that the job market is improving, the underemployed in April became no more hopeful (39%) that they would find work or move from part-time to full-time in the next four weeks.
Gallup’s Job Creation Index (not seasonally adjusted) provides additional confirmation of the improving job situation, hitting +5 for the week of April 12-18 — its best level of the year and its highest since November 2008. The 27% of American workers last week who said their companies are hiring matches the high for the year, while the 22% who reported that their companies are letting people go marks a new 2010 low.
The current job market situation is an improvement over last year at this time, when 25% of companies were hiring and 26% were letting people go. Still, it remains far worse than conditions in mid-April 2008, when 38% were hiring and 15% were firing.
One benefit of more Americans having full-time work is they have more money to spend. Americans’ self-reported spending increased 15% last week compared to the same week a year ago, averaging $70 or more per day for only the second time this year — and nearly matching the $72-per-day average during a similar mid-month paycheck week in March.
In a sign of recovery, General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre used an appearance today at the company’s Fairfax Assembly Plant to formally announce the automaker’s early payback of $8.1 billion in government loans to the U.S. and Canada.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama and Vice President Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
They then met with Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Oval Office.
The topic? Obama’s next appointee to the Supreme Court.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama attends a reception for G-20 finance ministers in the Diplomatic Reception Room.
The officials are discussing bank taxes in the wake of widespread bailouts.
At 11:50 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 12:50 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama welcome members of the United States Winter Olympic and Paralympic teams to the White House on the South Portico.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is examining whether any of the 19 largest U.S. banks are using an accounting trick that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
At 2:45 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the Oval Office.
In other action … At 10:30 AM Pacific, Biden makes an announcement on stimulus funds for a clean energy initiative.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to Finland, with the Icelandic volcanic ash beginning to settle, for talks with top officials from NATO nations on the future of the alliance.
In Iraq, the government following national elections six weeks ago is still not settled.
In Iran, after a show of force over the weekend, the Tehran regime again says it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, likely yet another bid to forestall new sanctions.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Sacramento today.
Schwarzenegger will be in Sunnyvale this morning to tour Serious Materials, a company that manufactures sustainable green building materials and hold a press conference. Serious Materials will be retrofitting all 6,514 windows in the Empire State Building.
At 10:30 AM, Schwarzenegger, joined by state Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica), will hold a press conference to announce he has signed SB 77 to increase funding opportunities for permanent efficiency and clean energy projects on existing facilities.
At 2 PM, Schwarzenegger will join state Senator Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) to discuss pension reform in a press conference at the State Capitol.
At 3 PM, Schwarzenegger will receive a briefing on the status of green jobs from Labor and Workforce Development Agency Secretary Victoria Bradshaw and California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Linda Adams.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $49 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
At least five people dressed in military attire chained themselves to a White House fence in protest of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy on gays and lesbians. All of them were taken into police custody. A few protesters also interrupted one of President Barack Obama’s fundraisers for Senator Barbara Boxer last night in Los Angeles.
** QUICK HITS. The national polls look rather rugged, but all the Democratic campaign committees have raised more money than their Republican counterparts. That’s especially so with regard to the House of Representatives,where Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s operation has a whopping $26 million to $10 million advantage over its GOP opposite. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is pleased that the California Assembly will finally again take up the confirmation of his appointee, state Senator Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, to be lieutenant governor this week. As I’ve written before, taking it up this late allows the run-off in any special election for his seat to be held with the general election, allowing the Democratic candidate a decent shot at winning the seat. … Schwarzenegger was also pleased that legislation to increase transparency in political fundraising, a bill by state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) was voted out of the Senate elections committee, transparency being a growing issue.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … BROWN, BOXER, AND (UN)CONVENTION(AL) POLITICS.
** WORDS HAVE POWER, PART 49: WHY IT’S “WALL STREET.” A new Gallup Poll reveals that backing for reform of the financial sector shifts heavily depending on what it’s called.
Americans are about evenly divided on the merits of giving the federal government new powers to regulate large banks and major financial institutions; however, they offer greater support when the issue is more specifically framed as regulating “Wall Street banks.”
When Wall Street is not mentioned, net public support (percentage in favor minus percentage opposed) for banking reform legislation is +3 points, but when it is mentioned, net support is +14.
Gallup measured support for enhanced federal regulation of banking using both wordings in its April 17-18 Daily tracking. A random half-sample of respondents was asked the “Wall Street” wording; the other half was asked about banks and major financial institutions, generally.
On both questions, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support banking reform. Seven in 10 Democrats favor the proposed new federal regulatory powers, regardless of the wording. By contrast, Republicans show greater support for reform when “Wall Street” is invoked than when it is not (35% vs. 22%).
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd is crafting a major financial regulatory reform bill that seeks to prevent another financial meltdown; the bill is expected to come to the Senate floor within the next week. Dodd is reportedly angry that his bill has yet to earn any Republican support — Republicans say the bill does not close all the loopholes needed to prevent further financial bailouts — suggesting it could be headed for an acrimonious party-line vote.
Gallup’s new polling suggests the Democrats may hold a slight advantage in the looming public relations battle over Senate Bill 3217, given that, by 42% to 34%, Americans favor congressional Democrats over congressional Republicans to handle “this type of financial regulation.” The Democrats’ advantage stems mainly from the slight preference political independents have for that party (34% vs. 25%). However, the largest segment of independents — 41% — has no party preference on the issue.
** “SATISFACTION” GROWS OVER PAST 30 DAYS.A new Gallup Poll reveals that American voters are more satisfied than they had been.
However, it is very based on partisan identification.
Americans have grown more satisfied with the way things are going in the United States over the past month, fueled by a jump in satisfaction among Democrats and a smaller increase among independents. Republicans remain largely dissatisfied. …
The upward shift in satisfaction among Democrats (and, to a lesser degree, among independents) was enough to increase the nation’s overall satisfaction reading to 27% in April, up from 23% in late March and 19% in early March. …
The substantial uptick in satisfaction among Democrats follows the House’s passage of the new healthcare bill on March 21 and President Obama’s signing the bill into law on March 23 (Obama signed the revised healthcare bill on March 30). Democrats’ satisfaction had dropped from readings in the mid-40% range last fall to 29% in early March. By the time of Gallup’s March 26-28 survey this year, Democrats’ satisfaction had begun to move back up; it has recovered to the current 49% in Gallup’s April 8-11 survey.
There has been less variation in satisfaction among independents and Republicans over this same time period. Independents’ satisfaction inched up in April compared to March.
Republicans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. is unchanged over the period that includes the passage of the new healthcare bill, with essentially identical readings of 10% to 11% in March and April.
Limited flights began today over Europe after days of air traffic being grounded by Iceland’s volcanic ash. But officials warn it will take time to clear the backlog, and more ash could cause future problems.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in California and Washington today.
At 8:40 AM Pacific, Obama departs Los Angeles on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 1:15 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 1:20 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Back in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden delivers the keynote address at Brookings’ “From Recession to Recovery to Renewal” forum.
And Biden will make an announcement about Title IX at George Washington University
Obama is receiving his daily intelligence and economic briefings on Air Force One.
He appeared yesterday at three Los Angeles fundraisers for Senator Barbara Boxer and the DNC.
The events raised in excess of $3.5 million.
While in Los Angeles, Obama conferred privately with former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for governor of California, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and other leading figures.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
In Iraq, the government following national elections six weeks ago is still not settled.
In Iran, after a show of force over the weekend, the Tehran regime again says it has a new compromise on the nuclear enrichment issue, likely yet another bid to forestall new sanctions.
Dorothy Height, who as the longtime president of the National Council of Negro Women was the leading female voice of the 1960s civil rights movement, died Tuesday. She was 98.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
At 10:15 AM, Schwarzenegger will announce the introduction of SB 955 state by Senator Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar). This legislation is intended to provide local school districts with additional flexibility on school choice.
Schwarzenegger will also announce his support for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)/Public Counsel lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District’s teacher layoff practices that are are believed to be disproportionally hurting low-income and minority schools.
** 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR BROWN, WHITMAN, POIZNER, ROMNEY, AND OBAMA. … From my April 1st column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $49 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
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